Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Why does a Russian CEO need a $3.69 million tablet?

Today’s tech titans are blessed with wondrous perks: company cars, private jets, even a free house for Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. But Russian oil titan Gazprom--one of the largest companies in the world--and its chief executive Alexey Miller, together have reached a new level: setting aside 119.7 million rubles ($3.69 million) for a new tablet.

Gazprom published its tender offer on its website, which was previously noted by Bloomberg. The tablet will be designed to allow Miller to constantly monitor Gazprom’s operations, while offering him all the power of his desktop computer. And the manufacturer, whoever it might be, needs to design the tablet to include 3G, GPRS, and Wi-Fi—and the Apple iOS operating system, to boot.

So did Gazprom just agree to pay $3.69 million for the best blinged-out iPad money can buy? Not necessarily. As the chief executive of a company that pulled in $153 billion in revenue in 2012, there are two concerns that Gazprom likely has in designing a tablet: security and bandwidth.

GazpromWhy is this man, Alexey Miller of Gazprom, smiling? Perhaps because he's getting perhaps the world's most expensive tablet.

Gazprom resulted when the USSR’s oil and gas ministry went private, which transformed a government-backed agency into one nominally controlled by the private sector. As such, Russian interests are competing with multinational corporations, especially in offshore areas where Russia’s influence legally ends.